


Dream Walking

by Torpi



Series: Search and Rescue [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:35:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29136423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torpi/pseuds/Torpi
Summary: Maedhros gets a new chance to save the twins. But is it real or just a nightmare that is soon to end and begin anew?
Relationships: Maedhros&Elured&Elurin, Maedhros&Maglor
Series: Search and Rescue [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138226
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	1. Lucid Nightmare

Maedhros finds himself back in the same freezing dark forest from his nightmares, his blood frozen, his fëa burning painfully hot in his chest. A dark pit opens in his mind. He is tired. He is grieving. All emotions, all hurts rush in as fresh as the day they happened. Every nightmare is just as vivid as that day, the sharp knife of memory not dulled in the least by the passing of time.

He touches his mourning braid, thicker with three new strands, soon to get two new blood-red ones, straightens his shoulders then lets them fall, head bowed and takes a shuffling step forward. He knows the way by now.

He starts walking with laborious steps on the unseen path again. He knows the forest well now. He always finds the twins. Sometimes he dallies and they are frozen cold, dead. He waits a bit less to get to them and then he finds them on the verge of death, too weak to fight him. They are too weak to survive either so in the end he still buries them. 

Sometimes he tries to talk with them but they always scream, attack, and they always get torn to pieces. He is unable to make the dreams change the course of his blade, change the course of the children’s actions.

Now, he starts once more on that same futile path. He tries again although he knows the end. Yes, there they are, as always, clasped together in a tight embrace, half-buried in Warm-Moss. He has realised by now that originally, the children had caught him in a trap. They had made him lower his guard by being pliant then tried to kill him, their warm hands ready to wield the knives.

He cannot fault them for that. But if he really had another chance, he would have tied them so they wouldn’t be able to attack. Treating them as prisoners would have been kinder to him and them in the end. He had confused them with his brothers and he had paid the price twice over.

He stops in front of their still forms, rips pieces of his clothes, of his cloak, that _damned_ cloak, always a bloody shroud, puts his right foot on Eluréd and sits on him, forcefully wrenches them apart, punches Elurín in the stomach so that the child falls unconscious, then gets to work, singing binding songs to aid him. He gags the child, ignoring the other’s struggles. His knee is pressing slightly on Eluréd’s windpipe, his leg on his diaphragm so the boy cannot take in enough air to sing or scream. His hands are under his body, legs flailing uselessly, not finding any purchase to throw him off. Elurín has started stirring but is already bound so Maedhros rolls him back into the moss and concentrates on Eluréd.

Soon he has both of them bound and gagged.

He watches them, considering. He has done this before. Sometimes they have died during the struggle, other times they have died on the way, or lost arms and legs because of restricted blood flow, and then died from it.

He had gotten good at this, he thinks bitterly. They should be fine this time. Once, they died of dehydration, he remembers and his lips pull into a snarl.

He hesitates but in the end he blind-folds them as well. He cannot take their gaze right now, cannot look and see the fear, the anger, and their tears freezing in the corner of their eyes like sharp diamonds that pierce the skin, leaving bloody furrows on their cheeks. Better for their eyes to get welded shut from cold than this.

He couldn’t save his brothers. He never had the chance to do so. His nightmares about them are different, smoky and swirling together with all the deaths in his family. But with them, he can’t stop trying. So he does what he does all the time. He bounds them in his cloak, takes them in his arms, sings songs of warmth and sleep to keep them safe and starts the weary journey to the boys’ death.

His grip tightens on the boys’ wriggling forms.

He wishes he could meet his brothers and father alive again.

His braid swings like a log, stiff from cold, its three new strands shining dark and red.


	2. Illusion

They are still alive and he is still walking in a dark frozen landscape.

This dream is longer than usual.

He walks on, the scenery unchanging, the grey light lending the surrounding forest a flat, lifeless quality. He wonders if this is a new nightmare, one where he walks and walks, with them snug in his arms, forever, in a perpetual limbo, neither truly saved nor dead. 

Maybe this time he will die with exhaustion with them. No, this is not right. He cannot die, and they shouldn’t, either. He stops and cuts two strands. Better now than when they are dead. The boys flinch from the blade, from the feeling of having their hair cut.

* * *

He marches on, grimly. He walks for ages, one leg in front of the other, mindlessly, seeing only ashen snow, ashen branches. The uncaring cold sucks all moisture from him. Cold creeps on him with icy fingers. Every breath is now like needle swords piercing his lungs. He still sings for the children but now he dreams of flakes of ash floating in the air, landing on his eyelashes and sticking there, blinding, searing hot. He stumbles and the boys almost fall off. He shakes his head, stokes his fëa and reminds himself who he _is._

He wishes he could forget who he is. 

‘My lord!’ he hears a voice, and he recognises Asturion’s tenor, one of his men, and he starts from his silent dream. For the first time in what seems like ages, he has heard another living being. Asturion appears from the trees, hurt, frozen blood caking face and clothes, his eyes hollow and dark despite the light shining from them. Asturion’s blood is the first new patch of colour he sees.

Maedhros looks at the two children in his arms. They’re much heavier than their own weight. 

`Put them separately. Keep them tied. Hydrate them. They are not to be close to any sharp objects`, he commands automatically.

Other soldiers appear, departed fëar coalescing from the trunks and fog, then their shouts of relief change them to bodied living beings. Their joy changes to horror when they see what he carries. They all look at his charges, at the boys in his arms with wariness, some with hate. He remembers they had been hounded in the forest by some of them.

‘Who gave the order to have them chased into the forest?’ he asks, voice dangerously low. His fury is a red hot blade, and all flinch from it.

Tyelko’s main commander comes to him and bows. `It was I, my prince’, he replies thickly. ‘I gave the order. The others were grieving and they did not question it`.

`They distracted prince Carnistir and the enemy was able to deal him a crippling blow`, another sobs.

`They were no innocents caught in the crossfire, my prince`, Tyelko’s marshal tells him imploringly. `They fought and maimed and even helped kill, but we did not kill them even after-`

‘Enough’, Maedhors replies heavily. ‘I do not wish to hear of more killing now. You can tell me all the dead’s names and I will remember them all in my lament. I will pay my respects to all of them. But we should not be so cold to leave those caught in circumstance unaided. They will live. They have to live’, he says fiercely and all bow their heads.

Maglor, his younger brother, still living, comes to him, face haunted and full of grief. He chokes back a sob when he sees the children. 

He leaves the children with Asturion with orders to keep them warm, hydrated. His ears do not miss the small whimper that escapes through their gags when they exchange hands.

He goes to see the fallen, three of his younger brothers among them. 

It takes him a long time to visit each body, to pay his respects to them, to lament and mourn them as their prince and general. All the lifeless darkened eyes, the maiming blows, the killing blows, he commits them all to memory and song with his remaining brothers at his side. 

* * *

The retreating journey is miserable. Empty handed of their oath, hands full with two unwelcome additions for most. The soldiers are full of grief and lament their fallen lords and comrades. They hate the children, they are afraid of the children, they feel guilty, they wish it would be different. All these dark emotions swirl together to create an almost palpable veil of gloom upon their company. Our mourning veil, Maglor sings one starry night with such a weeping pathos, many try to kill themselves and a few succeed. 

Maglor stops singing after that, face hard, burying all his grief and despair under a prince’s dignity. Maedhros has done that a long time ago but it is still painful to see it into his _ton’ya’s_ face. His youngest brothers have also learnt to hide themselves early on. They are even now scouting far in front of them, always moving, refusing to stop or speak except for songs of lament for the dead. Tyelko had been their teacher for a long time.

The Ambarussar never approach the children.

The children are kept sedated. Maedhros checks on them constantly, orders Maglor to sing them songs of peaceful dreams, calming songs, sleep songs. And he has them on different sides of the camp, blindfolded, gagged and tied. At all times. He has learnt his lesson.

When they arrive to Amon Ereb, their first longer stop before continuing the long march back to their forests where they cravenly hid before, the twins are kept separately, far away from each-other. Tied to the bed. Gagged. Blindfolded. No weapons or other sharp objects. Their rooms are bare. Maedhros puts himself and Maglor in charge of them with the same grim energy he pours on desperate plans and attacks. He does not trust them close to forests.

After two weeks, he allows for the blindfolds to come off. He looks each of them in the eye and tells them they might get the gag off as well if they behave. They should not speak. The children watch him full of hate. Their fury is undimmed.

He leaves.

He tells them if they want to see each other again, they have to behave. At this, they agree. The gags are off, but he doesn’t let them meet immediately. He waits five days.

When they meet, he holds Elurín, feet bound so he can only take small steps, hands tied back. Maglor holds Eluréd. The brothers strain towards each other, desperate longing clear on their faces, and they look so small and young Maedhros feels crushed. 

He remembers his younger brothers, cold and dead. Maybe they are at peace now, in Mandos’ Halls. He does not think of the blackness of the void. 

`Do you want to see each other again?` he asks both.

They nod desperately, not speaking, eyes pleading.

`Don’t do anything foolish then’, he replies and takes Elurín back to his chamber. The boy struggles in his grasp, desperate to catch a glimpse of his brother and he has to drag him all the way. Elurín opens his mouth but catching Maedhros’s expression snaps it shut, teeth grinding painfully, body wrecked with silent sobs that do not subside for a long time.

Eluréd did the same, Maglor reports neutrally.

The next day, he unties both of them and lets them meet. They fly in each other’s arm like two opposing magnets and don’t let go.

`Come and eat`, Maedhros tells them, gesturing towards the low table. There are no plates and no utensils. The table is bolted to the floor.

They look at him, hugging each other fiercely, almost melded together.

They hesitantly obey, eating in quick snatches. They eat everything they have on their table then fold their arms on their laps and watch the floor. Their arms and legs have gotten weak from prolonged disuse. This is good since it means they would be easier to stop if they tried anything. He must make them _listen_ before their strength returns.


	3. Fever Dreams

Maedhros wakes up before Arien’s light and automatically fingers his mourning braid. Five strands thicker. Finally out of the dream, he gets up and goes about the busy day in a blur. Much later, after the stars are fully in the sky, Maglor finds him out on the ramparts, gazing at the course of the Sky-River absently and forces him to eat. They sit in silence under the blue-white stars, coloured here and there with pinks, reds, violets, oranges and yellows, like a watercolor dispersing in the water. 

The food tastes like blood and ash. Maedhros forces himself to smile and compliments the food. 

‘They also liked this better’, Maglor tells him. ‘They asked for seconds, the twins’.

‘The twins?’, Maedhros repeats, confused. The Ambarussar are too old now to behave like kids. 

Maglor looks at him oddly. ‘The _twins’_ , he emphasises and Maedhros fingers his braid. It has two less strands.

He gets up and searches for them then, again. 

Finally he sees them in a sunny room, dutifully penning their letters. Arien’s rays kiss their silver hair gently, making it shine brightly. Their form is luminous, diaphanous like a play of sunlight and dust in a memory room. He retreats without entering.

‘Do I sleep well?’, he asks Amrod once when he has five strands.

His brother shifts, looks at his braid lips pursed, then leaves without speaking. 

He never sees his youngest brothers when he has four strands in his hair. He wonders if he has to lose one pair to gain the other. He wonders when he is really sleeping. He wonders which he would choose. 

* * *

One day he takes Elurín out of the fortress proper down into a practice ring, takes off his weapons and gives them to an attendant, then turns to the boy:

‘Let’s spar’, he says.

Elurín, who had followed him silently until now, listening to his explanations about the fortress’ layout and general management his face impassive, now looks up at him suspiciously, body tensing. 

Maedhros approaches him, and when his form towers next to the child, throwing him in shadow (he has subconsciously put himself with the sun at his back), there’s a flicker of fear on the child’s face, quickly suppressed.

Maedhors gently takes Elurín’s clenched right hand in his and turns it palm up, tracing the calluses. 

‘You have mainly trained in the pinch-drawing technique, I see’, he remarks. ‘Have you ever tried thumb release? It’s the best when used with composite bows, good for your small frame right now, since they are smaller but just as powerful as longbows. You can also use it when riding, and you can shoot fast, as you can hold more arrows in your hand as well. My brothers could show you’. 

He continues tracing the relatively new calluses between the side of the thumb and forefinger, the pad of the thumb and the palm, pressing on them slightly.

‘A little training in swords and clubs as well’. He nods, lets his hand fall; Elurín hides his hand, biting his lip.

‘We’ll do bare-handed combat’, he tells the boy. ‘You can do whatever you want. There’s no forbidden technique’.

Elurín still hesitates.

‘This is training’, Maedhros tells him calmly. ‘You will not have any repercussions for injuries inflicted during practice’.

These are the right words. He expects the boy to explode into action but Elurín watches him carefully, warily, jumping back from Maedhros’s range. He circles him slowly, no doubt getting his footwork done as warm-up exercise. He hasn’t practiced in a long time. Maedhros intentionally didn’t have them prepare first but the boy is not risking injury in a fast attack. He approves.

Elurín rushes closer, crouches on the ground for a low kick and throws a cloud of dust directly in his face. Maedhros jumps back and parries the boy’s kick with his right arm.

Undaunted, Elurín jumps on him, twists his legs around his left shoulder and twists his body, throwing both on the ground.

‘Well done’, Maedhros tells him calmly. Elurín seems to be debating whether he should finish the move and wrench his shoulder out of its socket, then releases him and gets into a fighting stance again. Maedhors smiles. Elurín is thinking long-term. 

He trains him the whole day, slowly making it harder and harder for the boy to win.

The next day, Eluréd does not wait for him to finish his explanation but attacks him immediately, kicking him behind the knees then jumping on him and twining his legs in a choke hold on his throat. 

He manages to throw him off, this time throwing him into the open hallway, not in the trunk. His spine should be fine. There are no pointed weapons around to get impaled in, either. Maedhros releases a shuddery breath. It will be fine. 

* * *

Maedhros wakes up and automatically fingers his mourning braid. Five strands thicker. He gets up and goes about the busy day in a blur; finally, Maglor finds him and forces him to eat. The food tastes like blood and ash. He forces himself to smile and compliment the food. 

‘They also liked this better’, Maglor tells him. ‘They asked for seconds, the boys’.

‘The boys?’ Maedhros repeats, confused. 

Maglor looks at him oddly. ’Dior’s children’, he says slowly. Maedhros fingers his braid but his hand comes empty.

He frantically searches for it, ripping out chunks of his hair in his desperate search and wakes up, long red strands twined between his fingers. His mourning braid is half undone, half its beads missing. Fingon’s strand is not there, but he has his father’s black hair instead. He takes it in his hand, kisses it and weeps.

Then he gets up and starts his day.

* * *

He is back in the forest. 

It is cold, he is bleeding, searching desperately. 

He finds them, trembling from the cold. He gathers them into his arms and they lean on him, searching for warmth. They bury their faces in his shoulders and cling on him, digging their fingers and holding on his shield strap.

He covers them with his warm cloak and starts the journey back, facing icy wind, flurries of snow that laugh and tempt him to abandon them, but he doesn’t he defies their orders and the children trust him to defend them from the cold, burrowing closer to him. He feels the pitter patter of their hearts, searching for his calm beating of his heart. He sings to them and they fall asleep in his arms, clutching at him.

His gaze focuses and he sees Eluréd and Elurín watching him from the table, their dark gaze boring into his, unblinking. They haven’t attacked, at least not with a physical attack, but he wonders if they saw his dream, if they walked on the same path and if they despised him for it. 

Their hair is noldor black now, dyed after a lot of effort. They keep pulling at their hair, watching the strange colour that now adorns their head. 

He approaches them to check their progress. 

‘Your penmanship is atrocious’, he says gravely, then he teaches them the correct form of writing tengwar, teaches them the flow of letters.

‘Imagine your pen is your sword. You are good with a sword, you must be just as good with a pen’, he encourages them. He patiently helps them, writes them demonstrations, teaches them how to make simple ink, lets them try colourful ink, gold think ink, shows them how to combine image and writing to make not only a letter or a text, but a masterpiece.

He shows them different styles, from minimal strokes of black ink in different concentrations, to detailed, colourful styles, to letters unadorned but powerful, he shows them all, and teaches them their uses.

He teaches them history. He makes them recite their own, which inevitably sparks debates on contradictory statements. The children resentfully tell him about some of the less than flattering depictions of Doriath they heard from other Noldor. Maedhros invites them to make their own apology and they reply with well shaped arguments. Maedhros pokes at the holes in their arguments, unraveling them, then teaches the boys how to make an argument skin-tight.

They eat and go back to their letters, Maedhros to his own thoughts. He wonders what would happen if he asked about his youngest brothers. Would they exist? Would they be there? Would they be dead? He subconsciously grips his mourning braid and the children stop and watch his braid curiously.

‘You cut our hair’, Eluréd says. His tone sounds accusing. ‘Why?’, he asks, eyeing his long hair kept in a simple braid except for the intricate mourning braid, with beads and ribbons added into it. 

‘To remember’, Maedhros tells them laconically. 

They continue writing and Maedhros slips into a dream (or does he wake up?). When he comes by again, both boys are close, Elurín with hand stretched to touch his dangling braid.

‘Don’t touch my hair’, he says flatly.

Both boys freeze, and in the end, Maedhros relents. Their strands would be or should be or had been there anyway.

When he signals his acceptance, Elurín unbraids his hair slowly, carefully. He seems fascinated and revolted in equal measure. They both brush his hair, which falls lower than his waist. He hates to have it cut after Angband. How he keeps his hair is his own choice.

They start twisting strands on top of his head in warrior braids. Suddenly Eluréd stops and fingers his mourning braid. 

‘What is this?’, he asks curiously. 

‘Take your hands off’, Maedhros tells him through clenched teeth, calming himself with difficulty. 

Eluréd grips his braid tighter and Maedhros turns to look at him. The boy is startlingly close, gazing at him defiantly. He puts his hand on top of Eluréd’s and senses a faint tremor in his fingers but his grip does not slacken. He slowly guides it to the top of the braid.

‘You should start from here, then. This is a mourning braid for family. You may have another one on the right side, for close friends. And another in the back, for enemies you regret killing’.

He then tells them of his brothers and of Fingon, moving slowly through the patterns, the gold, the green, the red, the grey. They listen silently.

‘An atani custom’, Maedhros finishes. ‘This is why you don’t see many others with it’. 

They look at his braid silently.

‘What happens if you cut it?’, Elurín asks.

‘It means you have ended your journey’, Maedhros replies. 

After explaining the mourning in song, in the patterns and colours of the thick mourning braid, the kids are silent, their own wounds slashed open, bleeding again.

They do not know how to mourn their parents. Maedhros asks them about Dior and Nimloth, and at last the dam opens and the children answer and he weaves their stories into a song of lament, celebrating the warriors, the father and the mother, the king and queen of Doriath, and then they start as well, voices raising clear and sad and he starts weaving his brothers’ lament with theirs. 

Maedhros fancies Elwing to have escaped but does not truly believe it. Neither do the twins, by the way they lament their lost family. 

He does not want them to die of grief. They would not die for nothing so he keeps himself their target so that they would continue having the same burning will to live. He will teach them all he can, before....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More details about the mourning custom taken by Maedhros from humans. 
> 
> The repetition in the chapter is on purpose. 
> 
> I do not wish to comment too much on his psychological state; I hope it got transmitted through the chapter. His guilt, all his baggage is making him unstable. And yet, he marches on.


	4. Sleep Paralysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maedhros gets to see things from the childern’s perspective.

There were once two children, two heroic brothers with moonlight hair who had to guard a crystal heart. Their parents, the King and Queen always told them of their duty. They were close to the heart since they were babes, they played with the heart and delighted in its light and song, and grew to love it as the King and Queen loved it. 

When they could walk in a crawl, the King and Queen looked at them solemnly and said they shall finally learn the story of the heart. The brothers sat, hands joined, and prepared to listen. Surely, the heart must come from the mountains, or even from the sky. Maybe it was a gift from a powerful maia. Did not their Grandmother have it first? Maybe it was her heart. All this time, they had been close to their Grandmother, about whom they heard much, but had never seen.

‘This is Grandmother’s heart’, the King announced gravelly, the heart shining on his brow. ‘But she had to win it from the darkness’.

‘Did the darkness make it?’, the younger one asked, unsure. 

‘No’, the Queen replied sadly. ‘The heart was at first an ogre’s heart. The mad ogre, with hair red as blood from all the elves he has eaten, wants to take it and sink its teeth into the heart. He craves its light but he is tainted. He thinks the heart is his, but that is not true. You are the heirs to the heart, the heart your Grandmother won from the dark’. 

‘You are to be its guardians’, the King added solemnly.

The heart blazes when the brothers touch it, singing with many voices, happy, warm.

The boys start learning to wield weapons. They will protect it against the whispers of darkness they keep hearing. 

One day, they heard the ogre demanded the heart, saying it was his. 

‘Did he ever have a heart?’, they ask the others. ‘Could it be the only thing that makes the ogre bad? Will the heart give him compassion?’, they asked the King and Queen but they shook their heads.

‘The heart is not his’ says the Queen again, firmly. ‘The heart is pure and the ogre is tainted’.

‘But if it’s his- if it’s returned might the ogre be cleansed again from his taint?’, the older one asks.

‘You have to protect the heart. The heart went away from him. It is not his. It never was’, the King tells them solemnly. 

They nod.

‘How does the ogre look like?’ They ask their weapons-master. ‘How can we know it’s him if he comes to take the heart away?’ 

‘He is as tall as a tree, he has black hands and his hair is long and red, always wet with blood, dragging to the ground, leaving a thick trail of blood in its wake. His eyes burn like fire and he smells of blood and death’, the weapon-master tells them. ‘His teeth gnash and worry at elvish bones at every meal. He has a toothpick made of lost children’s bones and his hair is full of finger-bones that clink when he walks, wailing with their voices’.

One night the ogre comes indeed. He comes blazing, burning, full of blood and fire. He kills and mows many with his flaming sword. He is indeed tall as a tree, with teeth sharp like wolves’, snarling and screaming for his heart. 

The boys are left with the heart and so they run but the ogre is not alone. His servants, some with burning eyes as well, others with void-black eyes surround them so they give it to their baby sister and prepare to defend the heart. Their heart. Their sister. 

They sing and fight with their weapons-master, with their guardians but the ogre’s servants slowly cut them down. They strip the boys of their main weapons, of their clothes, searching for the heart, angry when they cannot find it. 

They run, they try to find the others but the forest is cold and silent. They are not afraid. They are the guardians and they know they will find their sister again. They know the right way. They stop. The ogre, the red-ogre is hunting for them. They know they must not let it get close to their sister, to their heart. They know what they must do, so they go away from the right path, from the heart.

The two brothers carefully warm their hands, find Warm-Moss and lay in wait, springing the perfect trap for the ogre. He eats children, they know, so they are the perfect meal. His teeth will gnash and rip their flesh, but the ogre will not find their heart.

They wait so long they slip into the path of dreams. The snow is white, the berries red, and Father and Mother, tall and proud, sing and dance with them beneath the snow-covered trees. The heart is shining joyfully on Father’s brow. Their little sister is soon to come to them and the whole forest is merry. They sit next to the bushes and put seeds for birds then watch as they eat and chirp at them, when Father suddenly comes from behind and sweeps both up, up, in his arms, and twirls with them, making them laugh in wonder. But the arms are black and smell of blood. The ogre has found them. 

They try to scream but his foul breath has paralysed them. He bounds them in a bag, to boil them later or feast on them in a warmer place. Their terror goes back and forth between them in a loop, feeding from each other's fear and multiplying from the other. Finally they remember they should not be afraid. They are heroes, despite their cramped muscles that freeze them into place. Heroes go past this point, they know, and they are heroes and guardians. They are not afraid. 

They wait for the ogre to become used to them. He sings soothing lullabies, a predator trying to lull their prey into stupor, like a spider injecting paralysing venom inside their victims. They hum a softer melody and the ogre responds, slowing even more. Yes, their Grandmother gave them the gift of songs. They take strength from the memory of their Grandmother, whose heart has always been close to them. This is how she won and how they, her grandchildren shall win as well and vanquish the red ogre.

They will cut his head as well. The ogre must be stopped. They have no more fear. At a signal they attack but the ogre is still quick and does not die. They run and make the best of it. The ogre screams at them and their strength fails them, knees buckling under the command, arms weakening. They fall together and they almost get him. The children, the heroes always win when faced with the odds of darkness in Mother’s stories. 

But the oldest boy runs into the ogre’s sword. His brother should live, the big brother realises as he feels the cold steel pierce his body. The ogre throws him away and the boy screams at his little brother, his heart, to live, to win, to run.

Elurín does not listen and the oldest can only watch as his little brother is slowly torn to pieces. He doesn’t have strength to cry for him. His tears and cheeks have frozen.

His little brother does not want to live alone. He cannot save himself, but maybe they can save the heart, maybe they can still guard it. They cannot let the ogre get it. Maybe the ogre will gorge himself on them, get sleepy and forget his quarry, maybe he will not see the paths the heart has taken. 

Eluréd is choking on his blood. His vision darkens, thin cobwebs descend over his eyes. He is cold. The ogre jumps over him, deflecting an attack and his brother slips in his blood, passing so close to him Eluréd can sense his warmth. He stretches uselessly towards the fleeing form. He wants to live. He is afraid. He wants to hold his brother’s hand. 

His wish for warmth, his silent plea of companionship is what kills his brother, who goes mad with grief. Behind a thickening grey veil of coldness Eluréd dimly sees and hears the ogre cutting his brother up for his feast. 

Suddenly he is choking on blood and crushed teeth as well, then his brother’s pain cuts abruptly. The heart in his mind darkens with a rush of blood and his heart is no more. The light has gone forever. 

It is cold and dark. He is alone and hears the shuffling steps of the ogre coming for him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Titles tell a lot about the chapter and the frame of mind of the narrator. Yes, this is still Maedhros that lives through a dark fairy tale; children understand things codified through tales and stories: here we get their tale codified with more than a child’s mind. 
> 
> Next chapter will explain unknowns. (Why do they dream it if this is an au? Is this dream-sharing?)
> 
> (Also, trauma is not a passing thing. Maedhros and the children will not magically forget their losses.)


End file.
